Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed his convictions and sentence for drug distribution conspiracy charges. The court held that the district court's failure to dismiss four counts of using a telephone to facilitate the commission of a drug crime was an abuse of discretion necessitating reversal because the Government has never argued that dismissing the telephone counts would have been clearly contrary to manifest public interest and because the district court provided no reasoning justifying its refusal to dismiss the telephone counts. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court with respect to the conspiracy count. The court reversed the district court's denial of the Government's motion to dismiss the telephone counts and rendered a judgment of dismissal on these counts. View "United States v. Hughes" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 after the City's police sergeant sexually abused her. Defendants are state officers involved in the investigation and arrest of the sergeant. The court concluded that plaintiff failed to state a claim under either her deliberate indifference or bystander liability theory against defendants. Consequently, there was no constitutional violation for which Defendants Hanna and Bullock would need qualified immunity. Finally, the district court correctly denied plaintiff's motion to amend her complaint where amendment would be futile. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Whitley v. Hanna, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Ecuador, petitioned for review of the BIA's decision denying his appeal from the IJ's denial of his motion to reopen his in absentia deportation proceedings, rescind the in absentia order, stay deportation, and change venue. Petitioner argued that he never received the notice of deportation hearing; the notice of hearing (NOH) was statutorily deficient under 8 U.S.C. 1252b(a)(3)(A) because it was written only in English and not also in Spanish; and due process required that a NOH be in a language the alien could understand. The court concluded that petitioner's unsupported denial of receipt of the certified mail notice was insufficient to rebut the presumption of effective service; the fact that the NOH was only printed in English did not prejudice petitioner; and the NOH comported with due process. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Ojeda-Calderon v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law

Lamesa filed suit against Liberty Mutual alleging that Liberty Mutual was liable under a federally-required surety bond for the alleged misconduct of its principal, a trustee in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding. On appeal, Liberty Mutual appealed the district court's decision to affirm the bankruptcy court's judgment that the trustee had committed gross negligence and Liberty Mutual, as the trustee's surety, was liable for damages under the terms of the bond. The court held that the controlling limitations period in this case was provided by 11 U.S.C. 322(d). Because Liberty Mutual did not contest that Lamesa's claim was timely under that provision, the court affirmed the bankruptcy court's conclusion that Lamesa's suit was not time-barred. On the merits, the court concluded that the bankruptcy court's finding that the trustee was grossly negligent in performing her duties was not clearly erroneous; expert testimony was not necessary to establish that the trustee failed to meet her standard of care; and Liberty Mutual failed to demonstrate that the district court's damage award was clearly erroneous. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. USA by Lamesa National Bank" on Justia Law

SWT appealed the district court's holding that a lien on its principal asset held by Acceptance survived confirmation of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan. In light of the court's interpretation of the definition of the word "participate" and in accordance with persuasive authority from its sister circuits, the court held that meeting the participation requirement in In re Ahern Enterprises required more than mere passive receipt of effective notice. Accordingly, the court held that Acceptance's passive receipt of notice did not constitute participation within the meaning of this test and affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Acceptance Loan Co., Inc. v. S. White Transp., Inc." on Justia Law

Defendants appealed their convictions stemming from their involvement in various capacities in illegal schemes related to attempts by two housing developers to obtain public financing, zoning clearance, and political support for their rival housing development plans in Dallas. Defendants raised numerous arguments on appeal concerning the sufficiency of the evidence, speedy trial issues, conflicts of interest, jury issues, evidentiary rulings, recusal issues, severance, prosecutorial misconduct, and sentencing issues. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court in all respects. View "United States v. Reagan, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant, a licensed physician who operated an in-home physical therapy services provider for Medicare patients (CMPM), appealed her conviction for ten counts of healthcare and Medicare fraud arising out of her operation of CMPM. The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment where the district court properly recognized the independent factual basis that existed to clearly state an offense in the indictment, mooting the need to address defendant's rule of lenity/ambiguity challenge; affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion in limine to exclude evidence regarding her license because it was irrelevant, and exclusion of certain articles and Medicare regulation changes because they were not available to defendant to rely on at the time of her fraudulent conduct; the district court did not err by denying defendant her constitutional right to be present at all critical stages of her trial; and the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion for a new trial based on ineffective assistance of trial. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction. View "United States v. Thomas" on Justia Law

The Government filed three applications under section 2703 of the Stored Communications Act (SCA), 18 U.S.C. 2701-2712, seeking evidence relevant to three separate criminal investigations. At issue on appeal was whether court orders authorized by the Act to compel cell phone service providers to produce the historical cell site information of their subscribers were per se unconstitutional. The court concluded that cell site data are business records and should be analyzed under that line of Supreme Court precedent; because the magistrate judge and district court treated the data as tracking information, they applied the wrong legal standard; using the proper framework, the Act's authorization of section 2703(d) orders for historical cell site information if an application meets the lesser "specific and articulable facts" standard, rather than the Fourth Amendment probable cause standard, was not per se unconstitutional; and as long as the Government met the statutory requirements, the Act did not give the magistrate judge discretion to deny the Government's application for such an order. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded with instructions to grant the applications. View "In re: Application of the U.S. for Historical Cell Site Data" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed their convictions and sentences for drug trafficking, money laundering, and conspiracy thereof. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to convict all of the defendants; the prosecution sufficiently identified Defendant Magana at trial; challenges to the admission or exclusion of evidence were rejected; challenges to jury instructions were rejected; and challenges to various statements made by the prosecutor were rejected. The court concluded, however, that Count 10 charging Defendant Salas and the ML defendants with a conspiracy violating 18 U.S.C. 1956(h) was submitted to the jury without any special interrogatories asking the jury to specify which of the provisions each defendant had conspired to violate and, consequently, the sentences of these defendants should be vacated and remanded for resentencing. The court otherwise affirmed the convictions and sentences in full. View "United States v. Alaniz" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the the district court's reduction of his original sentence from 310 to 286 months under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(b) after he provided substantial assistance to the government. After determining that the court had jurisdiction of this appeal, the court concluded that the district court provided adequate reasons in ruling on the motion for reduction of defendant's sentence and that defendant failed to identify a single 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factor that the district court should have, but did not, take into account in determining his sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Lightfoot, Jr." on Justia Law